Lulu Awards Nominate Manga Artists CLAMP, Natsuki Takaya

Friends of Lulu, an American non-profit organization dedicated to promoting female-friendly comics and female comics creators past and present recently announced the nominees for their annual Lulu Awards. The Lulu Awards are meant to "bring attention to the best, most women-friendly and reader- friendly work in comics and to recognize the work of women comics creators of the past."

Given that Japanese manga has so many notable female creators and has inspired so many female comics creators all over the world, it was a nice surprise to see several notable nominations with ties to manga, with superstar creative team CLAMP and Fruits Basket creator Natsuki Takaya both up for entry into The Female Cartoonists And Comic Book Writer's Hall Of Fame.

Other manga nominees include Madeline Rosca, creator of Hollow Fields, who is up for the Kim Yale Award for Best New Talent, and manga columnist / author / reviewer and comics creator Shaenon K. Garrity, who is up for the Lulu of the Year award.

Voting is open now through Monday, October 19, 2009, with voting done via email. Check out all of the nominees, and send in your vote to friendsoflulumail@yahoo.com with your full name. One vote per person, please.

Last year In 2008, the Lulu Awards were presented in conjunction with the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art festival in New York City, but it's not clear if this year's awards will be presented at the next MoCCA fest next summer in April 2010. Ellen S. Abramowitz, Chairman and President of MoCCA wrote to explain that as of today, there have been no conversations with Friends of Lulu on this front.

In any case, congratulations to all of the nominees, and thanks to the judges for spreading some of the love to manga creators this year.

Image credit: © CLAMP